


Clavis Aurea

by sicktodeathoflogic



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Developing Friendships, F/M, Fluff, Identity Reveal, Movie Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 01:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13020489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sicktodeathoflogic/pseuds/sicktodeathoflogic
Summary: “You’re…”Michelle has never been at a loss for words since she could read. But this is Peter. This is her friend and somewhat-crush fantasy, if that is even a category. Peter is, apart from Ned, the gentlest soul in New York City, which is a standard that the rest of the world should respect.“You’re Spider-Man.”----ORMichelle takes it upon herself to make friends, and discovers Spider-Man's identity in the process.





	Clavis Aurea

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY so I started this fic waaaay back in July when I actually saw the movie, and I loved the idea of this couple so much that I wanted to do them justice. This, of course, means suffering through a semester's course load and writer's block until I finally finished it at the airport last night. Please forgive me if I didn't remember details from the movie correctly!
> 
> I hope you enjoy :)

I.

Peter’s getting his life back together. Michelle only notices because _not_ having his life together was so un-Peter-like, that those couple of weeks where he seemed withdrawn and unfocused drew her attention. Now, the lack of furtive conversations with Ned or fearful excuses during decathlon meetings to take phone calls suddenly seemed like a black hole in their absence. Peter is still Peter, by all accounts, watching the clock at last period with the look of a caged animal, pencil tapping, (not that Michelle admits to observing any of these things) but whatever had weighed on him before is seemingly lifted. Peter seems less… anxious.

Michelle wants to attribute it to him growing accustomed to Liz’s departure, which is a blow for the whole team, but much more for Peter. Michelle can see it in his eyes, the way he looks around for Liz at decathlon practice or at the cards Michelle is holding, like Peter expects her to come back at any second and light up his world again. Michelle briefly (and bitterly) calculates the odds that he would ever feel like that about her if she weren’t there. She figures it to be low. She’s not Liz – charismatic Liz, passionate Liz, adventurous Liz. She’s Michelle, the girl who calls him and Ned losers every day and flips people off in the hall who try to talk to her while she’s reading.

And yet, Michelle knows that whatever happened to Peter hasn’t gone away, not entirely. There are still some days where he comes to school late, clothes a little worse for wear, his tired eyes barely reading what Mrs. Sutowski writes on the board. Michelle continues to draw him comically in distress because, well, she can’t go back on her principles.

There are still some days when Peter even blows off Ned, though Ned, in all his kindness, doesn’t seem to mind.

There are still some days when Michelle asks herself why she cares, why she tries to understand Peter’s motivations.

It’s not like they’re friends.

* * *

Michelle looks over her copy of _To Kill a Mockingbird_ to see Peter and Ned whispering excitedly by Peter’s locker, meaning that they were probably talking about something lame. She doesn’t know what possesses her feet to move, but something does, causing her to march right up to them and burst their nerd bubbles.

“What’re you guys talkin’ about?”

Peter and Ned are flummoxed, but together manage to say, “Lord of the Rings – ” and, “We’re having a trilogy marathon – ”

“I want to come,” she states. What follows is a silence that she’s sure is a writer’s definition of a lead balloon.

Ned peers at her with cautious curiosity. “Why?”

“Why not?”

Peter shuts his locker door with a barely-contained perplexed look on his face. “Because you always call us losers for liking this nerdy stuff?”

Michelle shrugs. “I mean, I’ve read the books. It can’t be that different, right?”

Peter opens his mouth to say something that Michelle can already tell is a feeble excuse, when Ned steps in front of him and says loudly, “Sure. We’re meeting at Peter’s around seven. Bring snacks.”

“Cool.” Michelle attempts to smile a bit, but it probably comes out like a smirk. “Text me the address.” And with that, she flips her book back open and leaves them in the hall. Scout’s finally discovered Boo Radley’s identity.

Turns out all Boo Radley ever wanted was some friends.

* * *

Peter’s Aunt May is a person that Michelle thought only existed in sitcoms: beautiful, friendly, exuberant – all genuine features that could easily turn into a fit of rage if someone crossed her (not that Michelle’s ever seen her enraged, but she can just tell). She likes her. She especially likes the way May looks pleasantly surprised when she arrives at her door, backpack slung over her shoulder and grocery bag with tortilla chips and salsa in hand, like she is the first girl Peter’s ever had over.

Michelle thinks that maybe she is.

“Hi,” she says by way of greeting. “I’m Michelle. I’m here to watch some movies with Peter and Ned.”

May is still in shock, but lets her in nonetheless. Michelle hears Peter and Ned laughing in what she assumes is his room, plus some noise from a video game.

“Peter?” May calls out. “There’s a girl here to see you! Michelle?”

The room goes silent apart from the video game. Then, Michelle hears fervent whispering. Then, Peter appears, popcorn bowl in hand. He’s wearing a t-shirt with the Millennium Falcon on it and he looks ridiculously disheveled, hair askew, like he’d just rolled out of bed. Michelle blinks at him, like she’s seeing him for the first time, or at least differently.

She immediately dismisses her first thought, which is how attractive Peter has become in the short time she’s known him in high school.

“Hey, Parker.”

“Hi, Michelle.”

“I brought snacks, as requested.” She holds up her bag as evidence, but May quickly takes it from her.

“I’ll prepare that. Peter, why don’t you show Michelle your room?” She emphasizes ‘room’ just enough for Peter to go wide-eyed in embarrassment. Michelle snickers.

“Yeah,” Peter says, shooting a glare at his aunt. “Come in.”

Peter’s room is exactly as Michelle imagined: neat, nerdy, and an unspoken, yet not insignificant portion of it designated for Ned. She assumes that’s also what the bunk bed is for. Ned is sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the TV, grinning through a handful of potato chips. He waves.

“You’re telling me,” Michelle says, throwing her backpack on the ground and taking a spot on the floor next to Ned, “that I bought chips and salsa with my own money when you guys already had chips and popcorn? I feel scammed.”

“You know us growing boys,” Peter jokes, “we can eat our own weight in junk food and feel nothing.”

Ned hums in agreement. “You could say it’s a superpower.”

Michelle doesn’t think the hyperbole is _that_ humorless, but for some reason Peter finds it offensive enough to throw a handful of popcorn in Ned’s direction.

They only get through _The Fellowship of the Ring_ and _The Two Towers_ before Michelle announces that she should be going home. Ned’s sleeping over, obviously, and it’ll probably be three in the morning by the time they get through _Return of the King_. Michelle surprises herself by feeling a bit sad as she leaves Peter’s apartment. Watching dorky stuff with Peter and Ned was actually… fun. The two respected the fact that she had never seen them before enough to be mostly quiet throughout the films, only quoting every _other_ scene (although she’s sure they know all the movies by heart). They laughed at the silliness of some of the effects, gasped at the suspenseful moments, and defended the movies to the hilt when Michelle pointed out their inaccuracies as book adaptations.

As Michelle walks the path of orange streetlights to get home, she pulls her coat closer to her. She breathes out a lungful of crisp October air and wonders if next week, they’d want to watch movies again – obviously, she’d be picking the movies this time.

She wonders how’d they feel about political documentaries.

 

 

II.

“MJ, wait up!”

Michelle turns to see Ned jogging down the hall to catch up with her. “I already emailed everyone that we didn’t have practice today,” Michelle says preemptively.

“It’s not about that,” Ned says when he finally reaches her. “Look, I’m going to Hawaii to visit my relatives for Thanksgiving break next week.”

Michelle doesn’t know what this has to do with her, but she’s learning not to voice the readily apparent in order to maintain her leadership role, which she really likes. “Okay.”

“You know how we’ve been doing a sort-of weekly movie thing?”

Now that she thinks about it, Michelle realizes that she’s been over at Peter’s now at least once a week to hang out for the last six weeks. It’s become almost habit for her to come over after school on Fridays to study with Ned and Peter before changing into some comfy clothes and watching cult classics until midnight (the political documentaries didn’t go over very well). May even cooks a vegetarian dish for her now without asking. “Yeah.”

“Do you – ” Ned looks around, then walks to a corner of the hall to talk with her privately, and she follows. “Do you think you could hang out with Peter sometime on your break? Thanksgiving’s kind of rough on him and May, and I just thought that, well, with what’s happened to him – it just would be nice for him to be with close friends.”

Michelle is a little shocked by Ned’s use of the phrase ‘close friends,’ but she supposes that, without recognizing it, she _had_ become friends with Ned and Peter. Of course, she still calls them losers on a regular basis and gives them crap about their sexist nerd culture, but it’s more comfortable now, like Peter and Ned know she never means it maliciously. And Peter and Ned have, in turn, made her more at ease with herself in relation to others, supporting her, like when her school project on banana republics presses the nerves of the bigoted people at their school, or taking notes for her if she has to go to a demonstration. She doesn’t think twice now about sending them an email about the injustices of the world, with several Harvard-style citations.

It’s that relationship that makes her think there’s more to what happened to Peter than Ned’s saying, but she doesn’t press him and nods.

Ned pulls out a wrinkled sheet of paper from his backpack and hands it to her. “Thanks. These are some of his favorite movies, in case you run out of ideas.”

The bell rings, and Ned leaves. Michelle smiles a little at the paper. They are friends. They are _her_ friends.

* * *

It isn’t Michelle’s idea to have Peter visit her apartment over break, but he suggests it, and Michelle figures it’s only fair. It’s not like her parents are there to give a crap. She’s showing him around the apartment like an apathetic tour guide, and Peter is nice enough to feign interest.

“And here’s my room,” she concludes, walking in ahead of Peter. “I don’t have a TV, so we’ll have to make do with what we can get on my laptop.”

“Whoa.”

Michelle frowns. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Your bedroom looks so... _normal_.”

“What were you expecting?”

Peter shrugs. “I don’t know, darker décor, candles everywhere, a coffin – I guess I was just picturing a vampire’s lair.” He trips over one of the many book stacks that litter the floor. “I’m not surprised by the books, though.”

Michelle snorts a little and flops onto her bed. “Not all of them fit on my shelf.”

Peter turns around and starts putting the books back the way he found them. “ _The Second Sex_ ,” he reads aloud as he replaces them, “ _Fahrenheit 451, Wuthering Heights_ – jeez, you certainly like heavy reading material.”

“I don’t shy away from the complicated stuff,” she says, and he nods like he believes her. “But that’s not all I read.” She gestures vaguely to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf in the corner of her room. “I think you’ll find at least one heartwarming read over there.”

Peter gapes at it. “You’ve probably read every book in the universe.”

“Not yet,” Michelle says, smiling a little at the compliment, “but I’m working on it.”

Peter goes quiet for a minute before he navigates around another stack to sit at her desk. “I know what this is, you know.”

“A chair?”

“No,” Peter says, making a face, “why I’m here. I know Ned told you to watch me as some sort of Thanksgiving Friend Intervention because he usually does it. And now… now it’s just us.”

“You make it sound like a prison sentence,” Michelle deadpans. “Look, if you don’t want to be here, you can just say so. I won’t be offended.”

“No!” Peter says, standing up. “That’s not it, I just – I wanted to say thank you. You know, for doing this.”

Michelle looks at him and smiles. “Anytime, Parker. Now, could you grab my laptop from my desk? I promised Ned you’d watch at least one of the movies from his list, and I keep my promises.”

Peter reaches for the laptop, and Michelle sees his t-shirt stretch up over his middle, revealing a not unimpressive set of abs. Michelle feels her cheeks go a bit warm. It really is becoming a problem now, to hang out with him so intimately like this, when he looks so… well, Michelle is only human. But that’s not the worst part. She can’t shake the feeling like she wants something more from Peter, and she hates it. He is her friend, one of the very few that she has. All of the glances and conversations were nothing other than platonic, and she has to accept that.

It’s just very difficult when they’re in her bed in a position that others would call cuddling, watching _The Princess Bride_ while Peter’s whispering, “As you wish,” along with Cary Elwes practically in Michelle’s ear.

Near the end of their third movie, Michelle can feel her eyelids starting to sag under the weight of exhaustion. It’s almost two AM, and she and Peter haven’t moved from their position on the bed apart from the occasional bathroom break and for a quick dinner of mac and cheese, which Michelle makes. They’re both so quiet that they can hear each other breathe.

As she drifts into in the realms of sleep, Michelle can swear she feels Peter picking her up with only one of his spindly arms, cradling her like she weighs nothing, before putting her to bed. She hears Peter pick up his things and leave through her bedroom window and out onto the fire escape.

Maybe it’s the exhaustion, but she doesn’t hear him use the stairs.

* * *

Michelle learns quickly that there are certain conversation topics that make Peter and Ned incredibly uncomfortable. It takes her a while to pick up on it, for she never shies away from any conversation, and truthfully she doesn’t really understand the reasoning behind all of them, but she decides to make an effort because they’re friends, and that’s what friends do. So, she makes a mental list of topics to avoid: menstruation, _The Big Bang Theory_ , the _Star Trek_ reboot films, the second season of _Firefly_ , Peter’s parents, Ned’s experience in middle school. She’s sure it isn’t comprehensive, but she learns as she goes.

Sometimes she wishes her friends had a manual.

“Peter!” she calls during lunch, sliding up next to him at a table, trying to play off the body contact as casual. “I just remembered something. You have a Stark internship, right?”

Ned stops mid-bite of his taco and looks to Peter, who’s face has gone a little red in the cheeks. He maintains eye contact with his pasta salad. “Not anymore, really.”

Michelle frowns. “Damn. How’d you manage to lose an internship before the end of the semester? Did you blow something up?”

Peter drops his fork and Ned chokes on the part of the taco he managed to put in his mouth. Peter leans across the table and slaps him on the back until he stops coughing. When he does, Peter shrugs and says, “I guess I must’ve.”

“Metaphorically speaking,” Ned adds, his voice insistent.

Michelle sighs. “Do you think you could talk to the people you know there for me anyway? I’m trying to get an internship, ‘cause although Stark Industries has a problematic past, they’re doing some really cool humanitarian work now and I’d love to be – ”

Ned and Peter stand to put their trays away before she can finish, shouting, “Yeah, I can,” and “Sounds good,” over their shoulders. As they leave the cafeteria, she sees them whispering intensely and looking at her.

She angrily adds ‘Tony Stark’ to her mental list.

 

 

III.

It’s December and Michelle is walking home from the library, plowing through her current fascination: _An Introduction to Sociological Theory_. She’s so engrossed in the discussion of social classes that she barely registers the two men stopping at a car and looking around; in fact, she walks past them without a second thought. Suddenly, she hears the _thunk_ of something hitting metal, and a man crying out in pain. By the time she turns around, she sees one man with his hand stuck to the roof of the car by some white, sticky material, and the other man on the ground, knocked out, holding some equipment, undoubtedly to break into the car. And above the unconscious man is Spider-Man.

“Don’t you guys know that stealing cars is illegal?” he says, voice lined with mirth.

In one motion, Spider-Man shoots something out of his wrists and sticks the unconscious man to the ground. The other guy is screaming about how he’ll get his revenge, but Spider-Man just pins the man’s other hand to the car door. He gets up to leave.

“Hey, Spider-Man!” Michelle shouts. He stops and turns slowly, as if he’s hesitant to let Michelle see him.

“You probably don’t remember me. We met in DC. I didn’t get a chance to – ” Michelle doesn’t know what she’s saying, or why she’s saying it. All of this is happening so fast, and she doesn’t know if she’ll ever get an opportunity to talk to Spider-Man again. “Thank you,” she says, and she means it, “for saving my friends.”

Spider-Man is quiet for a few moments. Then he says, in a confused and hurt tone, “Of course I remember you.”

And in a flash, he’s gone.

Michelle feels more confused than she’s ever felt in her life. Why did it feel like Spider-Man recognized her? What did he mean by ‘of course’? And why did something about him give her a feeling of familiarity? She had only met him once.

It bothers her, for the unknown to her is an itch that must be scratched. Like a new book, the mystery of Spider-Man has to be solved.

Marx and Weber will have to wait.

* * *

Michelle wastes no time in finding a reliable source to grill for information. She walks up to him and slams his locker door shut. “Spill, Parker.”

Peter almost drops his books. “What?”

“I saw your friend Spider-Man yesterday,” she says. “I think he knows me.”

Peter goes as white as a sheet. “W-What are you talking about?” Michelle gives him a brief synopsis of their encounter. “But that just means he recognizes you,” he says. “You’re kind of unforgettable, Michelle.”

Michelle falters, pondering over whether that was a compliment, before shaking her head. “There’s something more there. Help me out, Parker. Do you know who he really is?”

Peter opens his mouth, but the bell rings, and with an obvious look of relief, Peter runs away to his class. Michelle frowns. Peter isn’t getting away that easily. For the next few weeks, and during winter break, Michelle texts him various questions: is that Spider-Man’s real voice? Does he have any allergies? Is he a New York native? Does he work with the Avengers? Peter ignores all of these questions, much to Michelle’s chagrin, but she insists. Finally, after the New Year, Peter snaps.

“Look, you really need to stop investigating Spider-Man, okay?”

Michelle is pleased that she finally got a reaction from Peter, but is surprised at the defensiveness in his tone. “Why?”

“Because,” Peter says in a serious voice, “there’s a reason why he’s keeping his identity a secret, and your sniffing around might put you at risk as well as him.”

“Aw, Peter,” Michelle quips, “I do believe you care.”

“I do,” Peter says, and Michelle stops laughing. “So drop it.”

He leaves her in the hallway, alone and confused.

* * *

Michelle knows that what she’s doing is crazy, creating algorithms to track Spider-Man’s whereabouts in correlation with crime. It’s creepy, for one. Super creepy. But she’s finding patterns, and maybe one day she’ll predict when and where Spider-Man will be next. She doesn’t tell Ned and Peter – especially Peter – because she knows they’ll confirm her thoughts on the situation as insane, and more importantly, if they tried to stop her, she would probably agree. So she tells no one, and continues to plot red dots on a map of New York in sharpie until she’s fairly certain in her predictions.

Finally, around Valentine’s Day, Michelle thinks she’s isolated a probable crime zone that Spider-Man would visit. She doesn’t have high expectations, but she wanders around the neighborhoods after school for a few days. Nothing. On the fourth day, she gets her wish – a crime in progress – but it isn’t as she had hoped. She’s warming her hands in a local convenience store, when a man with a gun storms in front of the cashier and demands the register be emptied into his bag.

“Do it or I’ll shoot!” the man yells, flailing the gun around.

Michelle doesn’t think he’s noticed her yet, and Spider-Man is suddenly the furthest thing from her mind. She wants to help. She grabs a broom leaning absently in a corner, and crouches between aisle shelves, slowly approaching the register. She prays that her self-defense classes will pay off.

With all the force she can muster, Michelle jumps and hits the robber with one downward strike to his head. The cashier screams and scurries to the back room, and the robber drops to one knee, howling in pain.

“You bitch!” he says, turning to face Michelle, gun in one hand. “C’mere!”

And Michelle is out the door, running faster than she’s ever done in her life, trying not to slide on the sidewalk slush, making as many corners as she can think of to get home. But the man behind her is fast, with longer legs than her, and he’s mad.

Michelle’s legs are burning – cardio was never really her thing – and suddenly she’s stumbling to a halt, doubled over to catch her breath. She hears a gun cock behind her.

“You’re gonna pay for hitting me, you little b— ”

He doesn’t finish his sentence except in a grunt, followed by some swishing sounds, and more grunts. Slowly, Michelle turns around. The robber has spider webs over his mouth, and he’s pinned to the wall. And Spider-Man is crouched down next to her, checking her for signs of injury.

“You okay?” he asks, gently.

“Yeah,” Michelle says, somewhat in shock. “I’m good.”

“You should go home, Michelle,” Spider-Man says, standing and turning towards the robber with uncharacteristic anger. “I’ll take care of this guy.”

Michelle stands, but then turns. “Wait a second,” she says. “How do you know my name?”

Spider-Man stops. “What?”

“I never told you,” Michelle states.

Spider-Man flusters, in a way that Michelle recognizes. “Look, I’ll just meet you at your house, okay?” And then he rips the robber from the wall, throws him over his shoulder, and swings his way into the night.

 

0o0o0o0o0o0o

 

It’s freezing, but Michelle leaves her window open for several hours until a figure lands on her fire escape with the agility of a cat. She looks up, and Spider-Man’s mask is staring back at her.

“Take off the mask,” she says, her thoughts buzzing in her head, connecting the dots, but she needs confirmation. She doesn’t really expect him to comply with her request, but then he does, and Michelle’s world falls off its axis.

“You’re…”

Michelle has never been at a loss for words since she could read. But this is Peter. This is her friend and somewhat-crush fantasy, if that is even a category. Peter is, apart from Ned, the gentlest soul in New York City, which is a standard that the rest of the world should respect.

“You’re Spider-Man.”

It is three-parts insanity for every one-part logic, to the point where Michelle’s brain temporarily malfunctions. Logically, Peter is one of very few candidates that were in both New York and DC during all of the incidents that took place. That, coupled with Peter’s mysterious behavior and the little things she’s noticed about how fast and strong he is, well, it just makes sense. And Michelle is there, in her room, looking at a guy in a red costume who, if he were normal, would be teetering for balance on the rail of the fire escape – a guy with Peter’s face.

At least he doesn’t have a secret criminal life, as she had hypothesized during Peter’s withdrawn period. But somehow, the thought doesn’t make her feel any better.

“Do you need a minute?” Peter asks, crouching on the rail without a care in the world about his center of gravity.

Michelle only knows that she can’t have him outside where anyone can see him. “Well, come in,” she says, moving out of the way of her window, “and then I’ll need a minute.”

Peter – _Spider-Man_ , Michelle keeps telling herself – sheepishly slinks in through the window and stands in the corner, like a child whose hand was found in the cookie jar. Michelle finds it both endearing and annoying.

“So,” she begins after a decent interval, “I’m guessing my Stark internship is never gonna happen?”

“Not in the way you thought it would, no,” Peter says. “But I can still talk to him, if you want.”

Michelle gives him her best ‘that’s not what I’m getting at, you idiot’ face. “Don’t bother.”

Another suffocating silence fills the room, pushing Michelle away from Peter until she has the nerve to bring him back. “I’m assuming Ned knows.” He nods. “And May?”

Peter winces a little at the memory. “Yes, though not in the way I had hoped.”

“So, like right now?”

“Come on, Michelle,” Peter pleads, casually throwing his mask on her bed like he _wasn’t_ Spider-Man, the hero from YouTube, the guy helping people in his city and risking his life at every opportunity he could like some latter-day knight. “I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know what to say!”

“The phrase, ‘I’m Spider-Man’ comes to mind.”

Peter scoffs. “Would you have believed me?”

“Yes.”

Peter shakes his head. “Even if you did, it wouldn’t have made a difference. What I do – people almost die because of it, people I care about. I can’t risk having you get hurt so they can get to me.”

Michelle is about to tell him not to treat her like a piece of china, or some goddamn damsel that needs protection, but she stops herself. “You… care about me?”

Peter looks at the ground. “Well, yeah, Michelle. You’re one of my best friends, and…” He takes a tentative step towards her. “If anything happened to you, I think I’d lose my mind.”

For once, Michelle doesn’t think first. She acts. She grabs Peter’s face and pulls it to her own, like she’s seen in all the movies that she’s watched with Peter and Ned. The kiss is aggressive and awkward and for a few seconds Michelle thinks she’s made the biggest mistake of her life, kissing her best friend. Then Peter cups her face and reciprocates the kiss with such tenderness that Michelle thinks she might just melt into the floor, or some other metaphor that she’d read in teen romance novels (she used to think they were ridiculous, but now she can understand where they were coming from). When they break, Peter puts his forehead against hers, and laughs a little breathlessly.

Michelle of course responds by lightly punching him in the chest.

“Ow!” Peter says, though Michelle’s sure he barely felt it. “What was that for?”

“Don’t think one kiss is getting you off the hook for lying to me this whole time,” Michelle explains. “I’m still pissed at you.”

Peter grins like an idiot. “What if it was more than one kiss?”

Michelle smiles a little. “I might reconsider.”


End file.
